Category: Personal Updates

My life

Welcome to Harrisburg

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Well, I’ve made the move from Philadelphia to Harrisburg.

That has been rough, but I can’t get Internet access yet in my new digs, so bear with these technical difficulties and a light posting week.

Tomorrow I start my new job covering the statehouse with the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents’ Association – so I hope to reform this into the adventures of a professional journalist. Terrifying.

Last day in 3333 North Park Avenue

Today I turn over my keys to 3333 North Park Avenue in the Lower Tioga neighborhood of North Philadelphia near Temple Hospital to my landlord. I have spent better than 18 months living there. It has become the first place I could ever really call home outside of my parents’ watch. Indulge me in some photos.

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I’m moving to Harrisburg, Pa. this weekend for a post-graduate internship.

Today I graduated from Temple University

TODAY I GRADUATED from Temple University.

Freakin’ scary.

See video of our university-wide graduation here, including my own commencement address, which I was honored to give (it begins a little further than three-quarters into the first Web cast video). Bill Cosby, a member of our Board of Trustees and one of our more famous alumni, addressed students – including a mention of my own speech – beginning at the second video.

See some photos taken by my sister here. Others to follow.

Graduation: closing out my thesis

Here just outside of the Liacouras Center, I stand with Assistant Dean Joseph McLaughlin, who has presided as adviser over this thesis project since last spring.

Today I graduated from Temple University and, unsurprisingly, he was there to congratulate me.

I turned in my thesis for a grade two weeks ago. Still, though I’ve graduated, I will be taking on his revisions before I place the paper here and wipe my hands clean of the project – for now.

Home tomorrow: Lakota picture slideshow

I HAVE BEEN IN South Dakota since last Monday, though this blog has been running on forward posts since.

I first met the group I’m visiting now back in 2006. With some other Temple University students, I did some community work in White River – a town of 600, nearly half of whom are American Indian – just north of the Lakota Rosebud reservation. See some photos of that trip below.

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Last major Philadelphia Business Journal clip… for now

YESTERDAY THE LAST OF my clips for the Philadelphia Business Journal during my internship, which ended May 5, appeared. Read it below as I filed it.

Delaware County Community College has launched $60 million in renovation and new construction to better outfit its Marple Township campus for science, technology engineering and math programs by 2009.

The community college broke ground on a 105,000-square-foot science building and a 32,000-square-foot technical building on April 18. Its mission is to reconnect students with a regional business community increasingly in need of skilled labor.

“We complain about outsourcing, but what you need to do is keep these companies from going overseas. They don’t have a skilled workforce,” said Dr. Jerry Parker, president of the community college. “We need to increase young people coming up through high school going through science and technical fields.”

Read the rest here.

I am currently traveling. This was forward-posted on May 6.

Lakota reservation reflections

I WAS FIRST IN SOUTH DAKOTA in 2005. I returned in May 2006 for a service immersion trip with a small group of Temple University students. It was then that I met a gaggle of friends from the Lakota Rosebud reservation near White River, S.D. It has led to lots of adventures, including two years and nearly 600 miles of hitchhiking, but that’s for another day.

Since Monday I’ve been traveling back there again and, if all went correctly, I should be in White River now. Check Google Maps here.

Read my reflections after first interacting in an American Indian community two years ago.

This region of Dakota’s limitless expansion is only interrupted by flurries of elevation change. Once on ground, the pavement of interstate 90 appeared to have tamed the land into a consumable table of gentle slopes and caressing ridges. All of which leads me to offer muddled explanations of the region’s geographical features: endless plains with small, yet punctuated elevation changes interjected regularly.  Read more here.

I'm road tripping in South Dakota, but I'll keep this popping

TODAY I AM LEAVING TOWN in a Subaru. An older friend and I are headed to White River, South Dakota (Google Maps), just north of the Rosebud Lakota Reservation, to which I’ve gone each of the past two years, including an initial trip with a Temple University service group.

We’ll do some community work, meet with friends, learn and I’ll be sure to clear my head.

I am done with my college career and have my graduation looming.

Indeed, I am returning on May 21, the day before I am set to graduate. Asking for trouble, I know. We’ll see.

Anyway, don’t you worry. This baby will keep cooking, as I’ve forward posted lots of stuff I have been meaning to get up here. What you can be sure of is that it won’t be on anything breaking.

Be well and good thoughts.